Today’s consultation write-up relates to a plan for 257 co-living units in a redevelopment of Greyfriars House. More significant than the proposed building itself is the new type of accommodation it would provide: Reading’s first* purpose-built co-living scheme. The planning exhibition gave me the chance to ask a few questions, so here’s what I made of it…

I worked in this building for a single day many moons ago, during a summer spent temping between years away at university. My agent had sent me to do data entry. It was supposed to be a few days but soon after arriving she messaged saying my previous place now wanted me back – I can’t recall why, to create them another spreadsheet macro or something. The data entry was dull so I confirmed via elicit under-desk SMS on my Nokia 3210 “yes, get me out”. I felt like a spy behind enemy lines. “Say nothing, see out the day” was the instruction. I countered that a lady was spending hours showing me what to do. “Just say nothing – I’ll take care of it”. By that I presume they would just send a different temp tomorrow, rather than have an assassin waiting for her in the underground carpark. Either way I never went back, and I’ve got no particular recollection of the building, but clearly just enough guilt to remember the story.

The proposal for this building brings back echoes of university halls. The idea is to have small rooms akin to studio apartments, supplemented by more generous communal living spaces, including larger kitchens, lounges, desk-working areas, multiple outdoor terraces, a gym and yoga studio. It would create a more sociable community attractive particularly to younger people.

Perhaps we should treat this latest buzzword “co-living” with some caution. After all, property folk have form with re-framing negatives. A home described as “airy” is probably a single-glazed candidate for an ice house; beware the “up and coming neighbourhood”. And their thesaurus-worthy list of synonyms for small: compact, cosy, bijou, well-proportioned, quirky, characterful, and the classic “low maintenance garden”. Is “sociable” just estate agent corollary for “rammed in like sardines”?

The architect at the exhibition spoke to me on the topic. He said, “the trouble with a two-bedroom apartment is that people tend to go home and then stay in”. I can see where he’s coming from regarding social isolation, and that’s clearly a genuine issue in modern life generally. But I’m slightly bewildered by the starting point that a home sufficiently comfortable that a resident might choose to spend time within it constitutes a problem that needs to be resolved. Why can’t we have sociable spaces and also old-fashioned concepts like a separate bedroom? The truthful answer is cost. The co-living concept comes at a discount of somewhere between 10% and 30%, relative to the now-conventional build-to-rent apartment accommodation.

Clearly we have a crisis in housing, and as a solution, additional supply is the only show in town. Expanding suburbia is incredibly unpopular with residents and environmental campaigners alike; building taller angers heritage groups. But I’d favour both of these levers over this new alternative approach of the ever-shrinking home: it feels something of a race to the bottom. The architect insisted that this emerging proposition of co-living is proving incredibly popular with tenants, a view echoed by another local property expert I consulted. Brands like “The Collective” are seeing huge demand in London, with all-inclusive billing, cleaning options, and great on-site facilities all adding to the appeal.

The proposed building itself is inoffensive. Brick dominates, in keeping with the area, and the separation of the lower floors persists through varied colouring. The environmentalist argument might be that the existing building should be retrofitted. It was explained to me that this was logistically difficult here, but was considered in depth. It would have been as costly as a rebuild, less energy efficient, and fail to maximise the potential of the site. And I struggle to see an aesthetic argument to retain the incumbent – I photographed it on a perfect day, applied all the filters and more vignette than a Top Gear special yet it’s still uninspiring.

I pushed on whether they could go higher than the adjacent newly built Friar’s Walk rebuild, especially given the council is apparently supportive of statement corner buildings. The answer was that the plot was small and increased demands on ground floor space – bike storage, resident amenities etc – would make a taller development challenging. The planning consultant agreed that 12 storeys was about right for the site.

I’m inclined to summarise that short of restructuring the national approach to planning, we need to embrace this new concept and try it out. Ultimately, it provides a new choice to renters, and will also contribute a proportion of units for subsidised rent for key workers. And it’s no bad thing bringing more younger people into the town centre to live. The architect did try to convince me that the offer was attractive to older age groups too. But he produced a pie chart analysing existing developments that showed an aged 50+ segment as pretty much just a line, and the 40 to 50 slice would disintegrate in front of you if you tried to cut it on an actual pie. There was a meaningful sub 29 cohort – perhaps that’s what he meant by older age groups? I need to come to terms with the fact that when I was in their target demographic I was, well, writing spreadsheet macros and playing snake on a Nokia. When it comes to co-living, it seems I need to move with the times, as does Greyfriars House.

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What do you think? As always, comments very welcome. You can see all the details of the consultation yourself here, and respond to them directly ahead of the submission of a planning application.

* The Soane Point development in Market Place is essentially also co-living, but it is a conversion rather than a purpose-built scheme. Also, it’s stalled mid-construction due to the main contractor going under. One other new co-living scheme on the edge of the town centre is rumoured to be in the early stages of planning.